Clay Crisis Chapter 2

How do eight weeks pass, summertime be well into July heat, and we can hardly remember our way home? Sometime today, God willing, we will leave the hospital and not have to be readmitted for a long time! Clay's gastrostomy mickey is now replaced with a Gastrostomy/Jejeunostomy tube.....a lot more obvious and larger than the simple mickey, but if jejeunostomy feeds keep us home, by golly we will happily accommodate larger tubing and learning a new method of feeding him after 24 years!!! His stomach no longer empties as it should because of bands of tissue and anatomy constricting the area that opens into the intestine and also keeps food from back flowing to the stomach......(it's all complicated and at 50, my brain is much foggier than when I was 26, so I'll just say complicated; it all makes sense, just no need to go into grand detail for now).....so the J tube will allow feeds to be absorbed by avoiding the stomach. We will use the G tube port for medication dispersal and water flushes, but for the enteral Nutren 2.0, we now will use a feeding pump and slow feed the majority of the day through the J tube. Overwhelming? YES! Adjusting ~ adapting? YES! Clay has had a gastrostomy since he was a year old....bolus feeds; now to convert back to a jejeunostomy and a feeding pump is a work in progress, but feasible. If this measure keeps him healthy and at home, we definitely will learn and adjust accordingly. It has been a very long eight weeks with only 14 nights cumulative with him at home between readmits. Prayerfully the docs from Internal Medicine have finally pinpointed why we kept needing to return with feeding issues. Thank God, they feel this has been the reason.....all he has been through has been difficult and exhausting. But Clay is still with us and we hope this new feeding regimen will be finishing glaze on his now reformed vessel. There is much more I can explain and possibly post, but for now a smaller post to update our status. Please keep Clay in your prayers. We appreciate all of them as we anticipate going home at some point today and very prayerfully, our lives will begin to get back to normal with some modifications and rest. We are blessed to still have Clay here with us......so many amazing miracles and extreme blessings during this eight week ordeal. I cannot fathom how Mary endured Jesus suffering; I experienced much conflict with emotions in my prayers and groans that words could not express as we watched Clay suffering horribly and painfully as he has. His journey here is not finished yet; he says his angels have been with him and he is to stay here with us. I don't know for how long, but I will treasure my jar of Clay for as long as God ordains our purposes here on Earth. He is sovereign and He deserves much praise for all He has provided. Love remains never ending.

Much love, many hugs, and abundant blessings to all you mamas and amazing kids~ Annette :)